Hanna nodded.
Omar came to stand alongside them and followed her index finger. The cliff curved around an inlet where the turquoise sea lapped the rocks.
“On the other side of the calanque, there’s a trail that leads straight down to the shore that fronts the village. It’s a gradual descent. An easy walk."
Marielle smiled encouragingly at Hanna after this explanation, but he the reassurance was meant for him. She was still fretting about his headache.
The irony.
This headache was because of her. More precisely, because he was worried about her. From the moment they'd been assigned to this mission, he understood they'd be in danger once they boarded the yacht. It was part of the job. But once the danger was real, not theoretical, the visceral fear that Marielle could be harmed—or worse—settled into his gut.
He now understood why Jake had refused to give a real-life husband and wife team this assignment. Jake had told Omar that if anything happened to Olivia, Trent would never recover. Omar imagined losing Marielle on this mission, and the pain crushing his skull intensified.
He shook the thought away and blinked. Both women staring at him. They were obviously waiting for an answer. Too bad he didn't know the question.
“Come again?”
“Can you get the binocs and do a sweep of the ridge?” Marielle asked, her careful enunciation not quite hiding her concern.
“On it,” he said with forced vigor.
He pressed the lenses to his eyes and scanned the ridgeline was a practiced gaze. Once he was satisfied, he lowered the binoculars and said, “All clear except for a family of red foxes. There’s a den with a dog, a vixen, and two kits about thirty feet off the path in a thicket down the hillside.”
Marielle pushed out her lower lip and considered this new information.
“They usually come out at dusk,” Hanna offered.
“Then we better get moving while the sun’s still up.” Omar shouldered his pack and set out to the west with the women on his heels.
Three
Marielle led the others down the path toward the village, noting that Omar’s headache had obviously not abated since he was still letting her take the lead. She took a deep breath of the salty, lavender-scented air, warm on her shoulders, and smiled. It brought back so many memories, the scent and the feeling. A hint of lemon, citrusy and sharp, rose up from the trees that lined the path.
The village was both as she remembered it and different. The same narrow cobblestone streets lined with the same brightly colored, tightly packed buildings, although the colors were muted, faded from the sun. And the trees and bushes, some flowering and some fruiting, were more riotous and larger than they had been the last time she was here. Some of the storefronts had new signs. The little park in the center of the village had a new gazebo. But for the most part, it was as she remembered it.
Before they reached the town proper, she veered off the path and toward the shore.
“Why are we going down to the beach?” Hanna asked, her eyes darting from the village laid out below to the sand and the open water beyond it.
“It’s better if we approach from behind the town,” Marielle said. “Just in case.”
Just in case your boyfriend’s armed guards are staking out this random village south of Marseille. Unlikely, yes. But the inconvenience was small and the benefit large.
“Besides,” Omar added, picking his way over the loose stones that led down to the sandy shore.“We do look like we just spent a day on the water.”
He gestured at his swim trunks and rash guard and then toward the women’s bathing suits.
He had a point. They’d worn their bathing suits on the jet skis to avoid being slowed down by wet clothing. But the dry bags were small, and they needed the limited space for much more important items than clothes.
“True,” Hanna conceded even as she furrowed her brow. Her worry that that they’d be exposed, easy for Idris’s men to spot from the sea, was palpable.
“We’ll only be down there for a few minutes,” Marielle assured her breezily. “Then we’ll pop right up to the inn.”
Evidently, her tone was a bit too breezy because Omar narrowed his eyes.
“Are you sure this innkeeper will remember you? This whole plan hinges on us being able to hunker down until we can arrange transportation to Marseille.”
She ignored his question because she’d never actually met the innkeeper. Instead, she was counting on a gossamer-thin family connection. But there was no reason to tell Omar that now. They’d find out soon enough if her gamble would pay off.